"Choir" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... churchyard of Winchester, and the consecrated spot where his remains rest has been, we are told, the scene of frequent miracles. In consequence of the virtues flowing from his body, it was resolved to convey his remains to the choir of the cathedral, but, on the day appointed for the removal of his sacred dust, violent rain commenced, which continued without ceasing for forty days. From this circumstance, it was inferred that the intended removal of his remains ...
— The Mysteries of All Nations • James Grant
... about in the fields," Yefimya went on chanting, kissing her boy and shedding tears. "Grandfather is kind and gentle; granny is good, too—kind-hearted. They are warm-hearted in the country, they are God-fearing... and there is a little church in the village; the peasants sing in the choir. Queen of Heaven, Holy Mother and Defender, ...
— The Witch and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov
... said Morrell, "it's all right. Kay is going to conduct. He's often done it at choir practices when ...
— The Head of Kay's • P. G. Wodehouse
... passed onward to the choir, and round it to the steps of the great altar of the chief chapel. Here, between the choir and the chapel, was gathered the congregation—no small one—and here, side by side to the right and without the rails, in chairs of state, sat their Majesties ...
— Fair Margaret • H. Rider Haggard
... distant chapel the music still swelled, and with it came the voices of the choir, "Father, ...
— The Old Homestead • Ann S. Stephens
... services as I may have rendered are gone and past. Marry, when there was need for my helping hand, I was the very good lord of priest and prelate, and one who should be honoured and prayed for with patrons and founders who sleep in the choir and under the high altar. There was no thought, I trow, of osier or of bulrush, when I have been prayed to couch my lance or draw my weapon; it is only when they are needless that they and their owner are undervalued. Well, my reverend father, be it so,— if the Church can cast ...
— The Betrothed • Sir Walter Scott
... where she had been afraid that she would not find room, she saw that it was almost empty. The bereaved family sat in the choir; here and there was some village authority, a tradesman and the heads of the factories. Very few of the working men and women were present; they had not thought to come and join their prayers ...
— Nobody's Girl - (En Famille) • Hector Malot
... the Admiral and the Vice-Admiral and the Master of the Horse, together with the body-guard of fifty halberdiers in fair red cloaks, commanded by Captain Edward Brewster, assembled for worship, the governor seated in the choir in a green velvet chair, with a velvet cushion on a table before him. Few things could have been better adapted to convince the peculiar public of Jamestown that divine worship was indeed a serious matter. There was something more than the parade of government manifested by his lordship in the ...
— A History of American Christianity • Leonard Woolsey Bacon
... either the resemblance or the model. During the solemnities, the most costly stuffs, precious stones, and embroidery cover the altars, vessels, priests, and even the very walls of the sanctuary. Music completes the charm by the most exquisite strains, by the harmony of the choir. These powerful incentives are repeated in a hundred different places; the metropolises, parishes, the numerous religious houses, the simple oratories, sparkle with emulation to captivate all the powers of the religious and devout mind. Thus a taste for the arts becomes general by means of so potent ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 9 • Various
... is very simple. Merely because la rue Geoffrey L'Asnier was built before carriages were invented, the man who gave it its name having doubtless dwelt there during the fourteenth or fifteenth century, as one could easily infer after inspecting the choir of our parish church. But last Good Friday, the Germans in trying out their super-cannon, bombarded St. Gervais. The roof caved in, killing and wounding many innocent persons, and completely destroying ...
— With Those Who Wait • Frances Wilson Huard
... reading, the chorister arose with superlative dignity, and gave the key. Unfortunately, the choir dropped a tone or two too low, and the first verse was sung at that disadvantage. Discovering the blunder, the key was again given, but the singers were now getting nervous, and instead of rising, they went still ...
— Thirty Years in the Itinerancy • Wesson Gage Miller
... be to other souls The cup of strength in some great agony, Enkindle generous ardor, feed pure love, Beget the smiles that have no cruelty— Be the good presence of a good diffused, And in diffusion ever more intense. So shall I join the choir invisible Whose music is the ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Vol. 1 of 14 - Little Journeys to the Homes of Good Men and Great • Elbert Hubbard
... spring its choir assembles, And every nightingale is steeping The trees in his melodious weeping, Till leaf and ...
— The Uncollected Writings of Thomas de Quincey, Vol. 2 - With a Preface and Annotations by James Hogg • Thomas de Quincey
... learned her lessons at home as best she could, and tended the baby and helped her mother. But Bertrand and his wife had plenty to talk about; for he went out and saw their friends in the village, led the choir on Sundays, taught the Bible class, heard all the news, and ...
— The Eye of Dread • Payne Erskine
... That form of hysteria has to wear itself out. I did not like the idea of her going, and told her so, but I saw what it meant to her, and took her. When you get her over to Europe, settle in some old town with a beautiful cathedral and a dozen churches, where the choir boys are ducky little things in scarlet habits and white lace capes, and there are mediaeval religious processions with gorgeous costumes and solemn chants, and the bells ring all day long, and there is a service every five minutes with music, and a blessed relic to kiss in every church. ...
— Senator North • Gertrude Atherton
... overwhelm them, against the all-pervading asceticism of their home, they flung themselves into the difficulties of the musical art, and spent themselves upon it. Melody, harmony, and composition, three daughters of heaven, whose choir was led by an old Catholic faun drunk with music, were to these poor girls the compensation of their trials; they made them, as it were, a rampart against their daily lives. Mozart, Beethoven, Gluck, Paesiello, Cimarosa, Haydn, and certain secondary geniuses, ...
— A Daughter of Eve • Honore de Balzac
... Secord. How quiet are the woods! The choir of birds that daily ushers in The rosy dawn with bursts of melody, And swells the joyful train that waits upon The footsteps of the sun, is silent now, Dismissed to greenwood bowers. Save happy cheep Of callow nestling, that ...
— Laura Secord, the heroine of 1812. - A Drama. And Other Poems. • Sarah Anne Curzon
... Church of Raymond believed in having the best music that money could buy, and its quartet choir this morning was a source of great pleasure to the congregation. The anthem was inspiring. All the music was in keeping with the subject of the sermon. And the anthem was an elaborate adaptation to the most ...
— In His Steps • Charles M. Sheldon
... churches. It has not the coloured glass of Chartres, or the marble glory of Milan, or such a forest of aisles as Antwerp, or so perfect a hue in stone as Westminster, nor in mixed beauty of form and colour does it possess anything equal to the choir of Cologne; but, for combined magnificence and awe-compelling grandeur, I regard it as superior to all other ...
— John Bull on the Guadalquivir from Tales from all Countries • Anthony Trollope
... within a plantation which formed the Abbey grounds, and taking a new hold of her he went onward a few steps till they reached the ruined choir of the Abbey-church. Against the north wall was the empty stone coffin of an abbot, in which every tourist with a turn for grim humour was accustomed to stretch himself. In this Clare carefully laid ...
— Tess of the d'Urbervilles - A Pure Woman • Thomas Hardy
... understood one another at once, and he had taken her to the village church where he had first seen her, and they had a private box, and Uncle Solomon took the chair, while old Mr. Shelford, Trixie, and young Langton were all in the choir, which was more like an orchestra. It was not particularly connected or reverent, but she had not been included in the general travesty—his sleeping brain had respected her image even in its waywardness, and presented it as vivid and charming as in life, so that the dream with all its absurdity ...
— The Giant's Robe • F. Anstey
... moved and astonished by the voice of one of the choir—it was that of a novice. After the ceremony the queen made inquiries touching this new Santa Cecilia; and who dost thou think she is? No; thou wilt never guess!—the once celebrated singer—the beautiful, the inimitable Beatriz Coello! Ah! you may well look surprised; ...
— Calderon The Courtier - A Tale • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... pointed turrets finely contrast their dark battlements with the pale yet brilliant moon. The effect of rays passing through the ruined windows, half choked with ivy; or of a fire among the clustering pillars and broken monuments of the choir, round which are figures of banditti, or others, whose haggard faces catch the reflecting light; afford a peculiarity of effect not to be equaled in any other species of painting. Internal views of cathedrals also, ...
— The Cook and Housekeeper's Complete and Universal Dictionary; Including a System of Modern Cookery, in all Its Various Branches, • Mary Eaton
... Warlike Eudorus led the second band. Him Polymela, graceful in the dance, And daughter beautiful of Phylas, bore, 215 A mother unsuspected of a child. Her worshiping the golden-shafted Queen Diana, in full choir, with song and dance, The valiant Argicide[6] beheld and loved. Ascending with her to an upper room, 220 All-bounteous Mercury[7] clandestine there Embraced her, who a noble son produced Eudorus, ...
— The Iliad of Homer - Translated into English Blank Verse • Homer
... as pink as the Castilian roses that grew even before the kitchen door and were quivering at the moment under the impassioned carolling of a choir of larks. Her black eyes were full of dancing lights, like the imprisoned sun-flecks under the rose bush, and never had indolent ...
— Rezanov • Gertrude Atherton
... and of the heavenly choir, I gladly and frankly acknowledge him; and our English literature enriched with a new and a singular virtue in the aerial purity and healthful rightness of his quiet song;—but aerial only,—not ethereal; and lowly ...
— On the Old Road, Vol. 2 (of 2) - A Collection of Miscellaneous Essays and Articles on Art and Literature • John Ruskin
... following my speech, with thy sight circling around upon the blessed chaplet. That next flaming issues from the smile of Gratian, who so assisted one court and the other that it pleases in Paradise.[5] The next, who at his side adorns our choir, was that Peter who, like the poor woman, offered his treasure to Holy Church.[6] The fifth light, which is most beautiful among us,[7] breathes from such love, that all the world there below is greedy to know tidings of it.[8] Within ...
— The Divine Comedy, Volume 3, Paradise [Paradiso] • Dante Alighieri
... spoke, his frame, renewed In eloquence of attitude, Rose, as it seemed, a shoulder higher; Then swept his kindling glance of fire From startled pew to breathless choir; 10 When suddenly his mantle wide His hands impatient flung aside, And lo! he met their wondering eyes Complete in ...
— Story Hour Readings: Seventh Year • E.C. Hartwell
... them all together." Possibly the lapse of two hundred years may do so, but I saw at once that he was right in the principle that no sham should be tolerated in honest work, more especially in a sacred building. We objected also to a new chimney which surmounted the junction of the nave and choir exteriorly: it seemed to smack of domestic detail; but here again he satisfied us by saying that, as heating the building was a modern necessity, there was no reason to be ashamed of such an indispensable addition. As a matter of fact, ...
— Grain and Chaff from an English Manor • Arthur H. Savory
... each alternate Sunday, when the Rev. Mr. Clark comes from Helena, a distance of eighty-five miles, to hold one service for the garrison here and one at the very small village of Sun River. And once more Major Pierce and I are in the same choir. Doctor Gordon plays the organ, and beautifully, too. For some time he was organist in a church at Washington, and of course knows the service perfectly. Our star, however, is a sergeant! He came to this country with an opera troupe, but an attack ...
— Army Letters from an Officer's Wife, 1871-1888 • Frances M.A. Roe
... bearded head of the holy man whose death was purposed in the sacred office. First, the measured tread of the Exarch's band moving in order; then, the silence over all the kneeling throng, and upon it the bursting unison of the 'Gloria in Excelsis' from the choir. Chant upon chant as the Pontiff and his Ministers intone the Epistle and the Gospel and are taken up by the singers in chorus at the first words of the Creed. By and by, the Pope's voice alone, still clear and brave in the Preface. 'Therefore ...
— Ave Roma Immortalis, Vol. 1 - Studies from the Chronicles of Rome • Francis Marion Crawford
... Pathetick, or the Vehement from the Tender, it will be no wonder if you see them stupid on the Stage, and senseless in a Chamber. To speak my Mind freely, yours and their Faults are unpardonable; it is insufferable to be any longer tormented in the Theatres with Recitatives, sung in the Stile of a Choir of Capuchin Friars. ...
— Observations on the Florid Song - or Sentiments on the Ancient and Modern Singers • Pier Francesco Tosi
... surprise fainted away, and lord Jeffery's pretending to have obtained her consent, ordered the body to be carried to Mr. Russel's an undertaker in Cheapside, and to be left there till further orders. In the mean time the Abbey was lighted up, the ground opened, the choir attending, and the bishop waiting some hours to no purpose for the corpse. The next day Mr. Charles Dryden waited on my lord Halifax, and the bishop; and endeavoured to excuse his mother, by relating the truth. Three days after the ...
— The Lives of the Poets of Great Britain and Ireland (1753) - Vol. III • Theophilus Cibber
... in the great east window of the choir of Exeter Cathedral, there is one respecting which I am at a loss. Argent a cross between four crescents gules. Can either of your readers kindly afford ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 59, December 14, 1850 • Various
... Heathcote's was recovered and brought to the nearest point, Wrangel, in the United States, for interment. "I am informed that the funeral was one of the largest and most impressive ever held in Wrangel. The service was conducted by the Rev. Mr. Reirdon, of the Presbyterian Church, with a full choir. The edifice was crowded to the doors, and the majority followed the remains to the last resting place. I chanced to be in Wrangel on June 30, Memorial Day, and noticing a procession of children clothed in white, several veterans of the Civil War and a number of citizens, I followed them ...
— Policing the Plains - Being the Real-Life Record of the Famous North-West Mounted Police • R.G. MacBeth
... something strangely impressive to him in this simple worship out in what to him was a vast wilderness. He felt more of the true spirit of worship than he had ever felt at home sitting in the handsomely upholstered pew beside his mother and sister while the choir-boys chanted the processional and the light filtered through costly windows of many colors over the large and cultivated congregation. There was something about the words of these people that went straight to the heart more than all the intonings of the cultured ...
— The Girl from Montana • Grace Livingston Hill
... with the King in the tribune, facing the grand altar and the choir, with the exception of the days of high ceremony, when their chairs were placed below upon velvet carpets fringed with gold. These days were marked by the ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre
... few persons in the building. Under high arches and in spacious solitude the Kaiser sat, as if in deep thought, before the priests' choir. Behind him his military staff stood respectfully at a distance. Still musing as he rose, the monarch resting both hands on his walking-stick remains standing immovable for some minutes... I shall never forget this picture of the musing ...
— Tales of War • Lord Dunsany
... the choir of flatterers, in full chorus, and their glasses were again emptied in honor of ...
— City Crimes - or Life in New York and Boston • Greenhorn
... she thought, the more she felt troubled. If her husband, the wise Bragi, had been at home, what would she not have given? He would have understood the mischief-maker's cunning. But he had gone on a long journey to the South, singing in Nature's choir, and painting Nature's landscapes, and she would not see him again until the return of spring. At length she opened the box, and looked at the fruit. The apples were certainly fair and round: she could not see a wrinkle or a blemish on any of them; their ...
— The Story of Siegfried • James Baldwin
... to have an awful hard time here, Sister Thompson. The church is split wide open about the organ. Old man Walker wants it on the right-hand side of the pulpit, and my sons have put it on the left-hand side, where the light is good and the choir can see the music better. It ain't decent, the way Walker makes himself prominent in the church, nohow. They say he killed a man in Virginia before he came here. I might as well tell you, for you are bound to hear it anyhow. My sons say they are going ...
— A Circuit Rider's Wife • Corra Harris
... in those days, and reverence took very different directions from those in which it now shows itself, so that nobody had any objection to Spring's pacing gravely with the others towards the Lady Chapel, where the Hours were sung, since the Choir was in the hands of workmen, and the sound of chipping stone could be heard from it, where Bishop Fox's elaborate lace-work reredos was in course of erection. Passing the shrine of St. Swithun, and the grand tomb of Cardinal Beaufort, where his life-coloured ...
— The Armourer's Prentices • Charlotte Mary Yonge
... with alacrity, and taking his place in the circle of boys standing with their hands behind their backs, he lifted up a voice worthy of a cathedral choir, whilst varying the monotony of sacred song by secretly snatching at the tail of the terrier as it went snuffing round the legs of the group. And in this feat he proved as much superior to the rest of ...
— Jackanapes, Daddy Darwin's Dovecot and Other Stories • Juliana Horatio Ewing
... work, and how rich yet mellifluous is the strain! Had Tennyson written nothing else but these, with the verse included in the volumes issued by him in 1832 and 1842, how high would he have been placed in the choir of song, and how supreme should we have deemed his art! In "The Princess" alone there are songs that would have made any poet's reputation, while for music and color, and especially for perfection of poetic workmanship, they are almost matchless ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume XIII • John Lord
... people at his word divide, Slow rolls the chariot through the following tide; Even to the palace the sad pomp they wait: They weep, and place him on the bed of state. A melancholy choir attend around, With plaintive sighs, and music's solemn sound: Alternately they sing, alternate flow The obedient tears, melodious in their woe. While deeper sorrows groan from each full heart, And nature speaks ...
— The Iliad of Homer • Homer
... shavings lying around the benches. They had doubtless imagined all sorts of ceremonies, the observance of certain rites in bottling the miraculous water, priests in vestments pronouncing blessings, and choir-boys singing hymns of praise in pure crystalline voices. For his part, Pierre, in presence of all this vulgar bottling and packing, ended by thinking of the active power of faith. When one of those bottles reaches some far-away sick-room, and is unpacked there, ...
— The Three Cities Trilogy, Complete - Lourdes, Rome and Paris • Emile Zola
... Bertha to church when she was two months old. The minister, being fond of music, had, for some time, requested the choir to chant select passages of ...
— Bertha and Her Baptism • Nehemiah Adams
... written the history of it. For nine days they made the procession, to return thanks to God; and they founded a perpetual mass, which is celebrated every year on the 8th of February, and they represented this story in bas-relief round the choir, where it may be seen at ...
— The Phantom World - or, The philosophy of spirits, apparitions, &c, &c. • Augustin Calmet
... The bells are swinging, Their little golden circlet in a flutter With tales the wooing winds have dared to utter, Till all are ringing, As if a choir Of golden-nested birds in heaven were singing; And with a lulling sound The music floats around, And drops like balm into the drowsy ear; Commingling with the hum Of the Sepoy's distant drum, And lazy beetle ever droning near. Sounds these of deepest silence born, ...
— Pioneers and Founders - or, Recent Workers in the Mission field • Charlotte Mary Yonge
... decently covered; tall white housetops stood around in grave array; worthy burghers were long ago in bed, be-nightcapped like their domiciles; there was no light in all the neighbourhood but a little peep from a lamp that hung swinging in the church choir, and tossed the shadows to and fro in time to its oscillations. The clock was hard on ten when the patrol went by with halberds and a lantern, beating their hands; and they saw nothing suspicious about ...
— Stories By English Authors: France • Various
... very ancient, with round Norman pillars and a rounded vault, speaking of very distant days. Everything save pews and choir stalls was of granite, its rosy color making the stone seem warm rather than cold. Vines, holly and flowers heaped about the interior emphasized by their ephemeral beauty the solemn enduring majesty of the church itself. Ten or twelve young people were working more or ...
— The Spanish Chest • Edna A. Brown
... a historic background marks most of Mr. Allen's stories. In 'The Choir Invisible,' a tale of the last century, pioneer Kentucky once more exists. The old clergyman of 'Flute and Violin' lived and died in Lexington, and had been long forgotten when his story "touched the vanishing halo ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern, Vol. 1 • Charles Dudley Warner
... himself when the first words of a psalm were sung by the village choir in Sternhold and Hopkins' version, and bending over the book, which his sister Mary had opened, pointing her finger to the first line, he raised his musical voice and sang with her the rugged lines which called upon 'All people that on earth do dwell, ...
— Penshurst Castle - In the Days of Sir Philip Sidney • Emma Marshall
... "And choir-boys are going about the streets, they say, singing carols in front of the lighted houses," continued Norah enthusiastically. ...
— The Christmas Angel • Abbie Farwell Brown
... Society consists almost solely of members of the Choral Society, whose fines, with small subscriptions from honorary members, furnishes a fund to cover rehearsal, and sundry choir expenses as well as ...
— Showell's Dictionary of Birmingham - A History And Guide Arranged Alphabetically • Thomas T. Harman and Walter Showell
... about him," said Edmund. "I thought that it was midnight of Christmas Eve, and that I was attending mass, when, just as the words were sung by the choir, 'Pax in terra,' the scene suddenly changed, and I stood in the dark on the chalk hills which overlook the Solent; by my side was a beacon ready laid for firing. I thought next I saw the Solent covered with the warships of the Danes, who were advancing ...
— Alfgar the Dane or the Second Chronicle of Aescendune • A. D. Crake
... is right— You see she was the leader in the choir, And she had run away with him, or rather Had gone abroad upon another boat And met him in Montreaux. Now from this time For forty hours or so all is a blank. I just remember trying to speak and choking, And flying from the room, the bishop clutching At my coat sleeve ...
— Toward the Gulf • Edgar Lee Masters
... drove Mr. Lloyd with Lola and a Mrs. Charlesworth, one of the guests, into Ripon to see the cathedral. We had inspected the fine transepts, the choir and the famous Saxon crypt—of which there is only one other in England—and had gone to the old Unicorn ...
— The Golden Face - A Great 'Crook' Romance • William Le Queux
... the terrace at the side of the church, Amedee, who was excited by his success on the ball-grounds, challenged Emil to a jumping-match, though he knew he would be beaten. They belted themselves up, and Raoul Marcel, the choir tenor and Father Duchesne's pet, and Jean Bordelau, held the string over which they vaulted. All the French boys stood round, cheering and humping themselves up when Emil or Amedee went over the wire, as if they were helping in the lift. Emil stopped ...
— O Pioneers! • Willa Cather
... inexhaustible. It is a temple of beauty and mystery in which to loiter long, and, as I have said, just by the S. Liberale in the gallery of the right transept, I made my seat. From this point one sees under the most favourable conditions the mosaic of the entry into Jerusalem; the choir; the choir screen with its pillars and saints; the two mysterious pulpits, beneath which children creep and play on great days; and all the miracle of the pavements. From here one can follow the Mass and listen to the singing, undisturbed ...
— A Wanderer in Venice • E.V. Lucas
... jadis a bas Maugiron le brigand. Le jour ou tu naquis sur la plage marine, L'audace avec le souffle entra dans ta poitrine; Bavon, ta mere etait de fort bonne maison; Jamais on ne t'a fait choir que par trahison; Ton ame apres la chute etait encor meilleure. je me rappellerai jusqu'a ma derniere heure L'air joyeux qui parut dans ton oeil hasardeux, Un jour que nous etions en marche seuls tous deux, Et que nous entendions ...
— La Legende des Siecles • Victor Hugo
... entered the great hall, where the Earl of Derby was feasting with his retainers, and informed him that the hour appointed for the ceremonial was close at hand. The earl arose and went to the church attended by Braddyll and Assheton. He entered by the western porch, and, proceeding to the choir, seated himself in the magnificently-carved stall formerly used by Paslew, and placed where it stood, a hundred years before, by John ...
— The Lancashire Witches - A Romance of Pendle Forest • William Harrison Ainsworth
... to a Nightingale." For assuredly it is the medium in which these delicate creatures pass their lives that gives them the chiefest share of their magic and their mystery. But this gem from Victor Hugo must suffice for all the tuneful choir: ...
— Nature Mysticism • J. Edward Mercer
... morning the newspapers with one accord paid tribute to the cleverness of the Loch Lomond scene in "Flo Dearmore's turn," and at every remaining performance it was repeated. But William had no part in it. A choir boy from a city church got "the big money" the manager had talked of. And Tommy Watson, who attended every performance during the week for just so long as Flo Dearmore's act lasted, began to eat like a man who had many slim ...
— William Adolphus Turnpike • William Banks
... was the youthful Earth, And lightly tripped along To music from a starry choir, Whose sweet celestial song Through Nature's temple echoed wild, And soft as streamlets flow, Where sister spheres replied with ...
— A Brief Commentary on the Apocalypse • Sylvester Bliss
... priest, who has always a powerful, deep voice, pronounces an awful curse on the false Demetrius, Mazeppa, and several other noted worthies, long departed from all terrestrial influence. Many people, and heretics of all descriptions, are also cursed, and then the choir chants forth in melodious tones the words anafema, anafema, repeated sometimes by all the congregation with most startling effect. The Russians are, however, more given to blessing than to cursing. The priests, at the same time, consider themselves entitled to payment for their ...
— Fred Markham in Russia - The Boy Travellers in the Land of the Czar • W. H. G. Kingston
... cold fog like the dinner bell of a boarding house, and in that yellow mist, which deepened with every minute, the white flames of the candles lost nearly all their starlike brightness. There seemed to be depression and resentment in the deep voices of the choir rumbling and rolling behind the screen; there seemed to be haste, a desire to get it over, in the nasal voice of the priest praying ...
— Painted Windows - Studies in Religious Personality • Harold Begbie
... and heavenly choir Preceded by the General Sire, Met in the air and gazed below On Rama with that wondrous bow. Nymph, minstrel, angel, all were there, Snake-God, and spirit of the air, Giant, and bard, and gryphon, ...
— The Ramayana • VALMIKI
... hearing once of an irreverent choir boy. At a Christmas party, a sort of feast of an Abbot of Unreason held in the less sacred parts of the cathedral precincts, the brat decorated the statue of an Archbishop with a pink and blue paper cap taken from a cracker. The effect must have been much the ...
— Gossamer - 1915 • George A. Birmingham
... Bessarion who, in the confidence of their learning and eloquence, were promoted to the episcopal rank. Some monks and philosophers were named to display the science and sanctity of the Greek church; and the service of the choir was performed by a select band of singers and musicians. The patriarchs of Alexandria, Antioch, and Jerusalem, appeared by their genuine or fictitious deputies; the primate of Russia represented a national church, and the Greeks might contend with the Latins in the extent ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 6 • Edward Gibbon
... apparent that the people of the city were defeated. I might have thought them even good, only I had the other troop before my eyes to correct my standard, and remind me continually of "the little more, and how much it is." Perceiving themselves worsted, the choir of Butaritari grew confused, blundered, and broke down; amid this hubbub of unfamiliar intervals I should not myself have recognised the slip, but the audience were quick to catch it, and to jeer. To crown all, the Makin company began a dance of truly ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 18 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... join the choir invisible, Of those immortal dead who live again In minds made better by ...
— Lives of Girls Who Became Famous • Sarah Knowles Bolton
... went on, passing through a vast and silent cathedral of spruce and cedar so dense that the sky was hidden, and came then to higher ground, where the evergreen was sprinkled with birch and poplar. About him was an invisible choir of voices, the low twittering of timid little gray-backs, the song of hidden—warblers, the scolding of distant jays. Big-eyed moose-birds stared at him as he passed, fluttering so close to his face that they almost touched his shoulders ...
— The Flaming Forest • James Oliver Curwood
... The hymn-book which Dick had found, in his midnight invasion of her chamber, opened to favorite hymns, especially some of the Methodist and Quietist character. Many had noticed, that certain tunes, as sung by the choir, seemed to impress her deeply; and some said, that at such times her whole expression would change, and her stormy look would soften so as to remind them ...
— Elsie Venner • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... fire on my hearth never dies, day or night. The country is mine, as far as my eyes can reach. Mine are the glaciers that make the streams! When I get angry, they swell, and the stones gnash their teeth against the current. And I own a whole lake with a fleet of ice-ships and a choir ...
— Modern Icelandic Plays - Eyvind of the Hills; The Hraun Farm • Jhann Sigurjnsson
... tread on shadowy ground, must sink Deep—and, aloft ascending, breathe in worlds To which the heaven of heavens is but a veil. All strength—all terror, single or in bands, That ever was put forth in personal form— Jehovah—with His thunder, and the choir Of shouting Angels, and the empyreal thrones— I pass them unalarmed. Not Chaos, not The darkest pit of lowest Erebus, Nor aught of blinder vacancy, scooped out By help of dreams—can breed such fear and awe As fall upon us often when we look Into our Minds, into the Mind of Man— ...
— The Prose Works of William Wordsworth • William Wordsworth
... among all nations, was a religious observance. It came in with the chorus and the ode. The chorus, or, as we now say, choir, was a company of persons who on stated occasions sang sacred songs, accompanying their music with significant gesture, and an harmonious pulsation of the feet, or the more deliberate march. The ode or song they sang was of an elevated structure and impassioned ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. IV, No. 22, Aug., 1859 • Various
... eighth, and by 1484, when at the age of eighteen he left in consequence of the outbreak of plague mentioned in Hegius' letter to Agricola, he had not made his way above the third; thus giving little indication of his future fame. An explanation may perhaps be found by supposing that his time in the choir at Utrecht was an interlude in the Deventer period; but in any case the school in his time was still 'barbarous', to use his own word, that is, it was still modelled on the requirements of the scholastic ...
— The Age of Erasmus - Lectures Delivered in the Universities of Oxford and London • P. S. Allen
... Ingemar said. "Every Monday night—at midnight—we hold Black Mass at the Wee Coven on Kirkwood Drive. After services, the Ladies Auxiliary usually puts out a snack, and we have community dancing and choir singing. It's all very jolly." He smiled broadly. "You see, the worship of evil ...
— The Status Civilization • Robert Sheckley
... hopes of getting newspaper work of some sort through one letter of introduction I have," answered Win, "or into a choir as contralto from the other. If not—oh, well, every one says America's the country ...
— Winnie Childs - The Shop Girl • C. N. Williamson
... Eighth day of last July the Bishop confirmed 28 in our Church at the —— everything in good order—the singing was complete—my Voice is still heard above all the singers and I still stand at the head of the choir—I am only 77.—On the 16th day of last October, Previous notice being given, the wardens and Vestry met at my house—one minister was also present, a Lawyer being called to do the business. At 2 o'clock, P. M. I commenced handing over Deeds of land, Buildings, Bonds, mortgages, money & furniture, ...
— Old New England Traits • Anonymous
... died in the hospital, and Carl had been appointed in his place as organist and musical director. He very soon organized a choir of forty persons. And this was not all that added responsibility to this young man's life. The bishop, realizing the growing responsibilities of his work, appointed him his private secretary, which ...
— The Mystery of Monastery Farm • H. R. Naylor
... probably the chief of all betters, and the one most awful if offended. Even in 1831 Lowick was at peace, not more agitated by Reform than by the solemn tenor of the Sunday sermon. The congregation had been used to seeing Will at church in former days, and no one took much note of him except the choir, who expected him to make ...
— Middlemarch • George Eliot
... retreat, had thrown something out; but my father, after a moment's hesitation, improvised some appropriate sentence, and the matter was afterwards arranged in the Moniteur. The Church of the Invalides was full to overflowing, the Chamber of Peers and the Chamber of Deputies being seated in the choir. The success of the day fell to my brave sailors. Everybody was curious to see them. Their athletic forms, easy gait, and kindly sunburnt faces at once won over the general public, especially the feminine ...
— Memoirs • Prince De Joinville
... richly gilt, and the pictures on the ceiling are far from contemptible; but I cannot praise that of the altar-piece, where Our Lady is covering with her cloak the Queen Dona Maria, and all the royal family, on their arrival in Brazil. The choir is served in a manner that would not disgrace Italy. I attended at vespers, and have seldom been more gratified with the music of the evening service. This the chapel owes to the residence of the royal family, whose passion and talent for music are hereditary. Adjoining to this chapel is the ...
— Journal of a Voyage to Brazil - And Residence There During Part of the Years 1821, 1822, 1823 • Maria Graham
... and change my dreaming. This is S. Stephen's Church in Wien. Inside, the lamps are burning dimly in the choir. There is fog in the aisles; but through the sleepy air and over the red candles flies a wild soprano's voice, a boy's soul in its ...
— Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece • John Addington Symonds
... attempts that pen, Which would enrich our vulgar tongue With the high raptures of those men Who, here, with the same spirit sung Wherewith they now assist the choir Of ...
— Poetical Works of Edmund Waller and Sir John Denham • Edmund Waller; John Denham
... reigns of the second and third Edward. It was begun about the year 1260, but was little advanced at the commencement of the following century; nor were its nineteen chapels, the works of the piety of individuals, completed before 1350. The roof of the choir remained imperfect till ninety years afterwards, whilst that of the transept is as recent as 1628[5]. The most ancient work is discernible in the transepts, but the lines are obscured by later additions. A cloister gallery fronted by ...
— Account of a Tour in Normandy, Vol. I. (of 2) • Dawson Turner
... transepts like a great plain, and such an airy height beneath the central tower that a worshipper could certainly get a good way towards heaven without rising above it. I only wish that the screen, or whatever they call it, between the choir and nave, could be thrown down, so as to give us leave to take in the whole vastitude at once. I never could understand why, after building a great church, they choose to sunder it in halves by this mid-partition. ...
— Passages From the English Notebooks, Complete • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... wealth of flowers massed all over the chancel, and wondered if that was its regular state. The pulpit and the lectern; the altar, which he easily identified; the stained-glass windows with their obviously symbolic pictures; the bronze pipes of the little organ; the unvested choir, whose function he vaguely made out—over all these his intelligent eye swept, curiously; and lastly it went out of the open window and lost itself in the quiet sunny ...
— Queed • Henry Sydnor Harrison
... person is addressed, and in the last verse a single person. It begins with 'Bless ye the Lord'; and the latter words are, 'The Lord bless thee.' No doubt, when used in the Temple service, the first part was chanted by one half of the choir, and the other part by the other. Who are the persons addressed in the first portion? The answer stands plain in the psalm itself. They are, 'All ye servants of the Lord, which by night stand in the House of the ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... kids as he detested the machinations of the Evil One, he seldom went into society, but he was always ready for lectures and concerts, marching off to the hall with me on his arm as proudly as if I had been the most bewitching damsel. Excepting on Saturday, when I was usually engaged at the choir rehearsal, we were rarely separated of ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Vol. 20, August 1877 • Various
... pioneer suffragist of Sweden, and the flag of the resident Atlantic, Gulf and Pacific Tea Co., U. S. A. A suffrage song written by K. G. Ossian-Nillson and the music composed by Hugo Alfven for the occasion was sung by the Women's Choir of Goeteborg, after which an official delegate of the Government extended its greeting while the audience rose and the flags of the nations waved from the galleries. Mrs. Catt received an ovation as she came to the ...
— The History of Woman Suffrage, Volume VI • Various
... evidently wished him to supply the loss artificially, which he did. I have never heard a cat purr so loudly as Beethoven did on that occasion. After that he completely lost his shyness and became quite one of the family, singing in the choir on Sundays and contributing to the larder during the week by his skill as a fisherman. He lived with us until a few months ago, when he unhappily died through inadvertently swallowing a cork. He is buried in our garden, and on the stone ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 147, August 26th, 1914 • Various
... musician, Sir Robert Stewart, at the organ. I remember well Sir Robert Stewart's novel setting of "God save the Queen." The men sang it first in unison to the music of the massed military bands outside the Cathedral, the boys singing a "Faux Bourdon" above it. Then the organ took it up, the full choir joining in ...
— The Days Before Yesterday • Lord Frederick Hamilton
... says: "The foxes have holes, and the birds of the air have nests, but the Son of Man hath not where to lay His head." How very Christlike was that funeral of the veld. It resembled the Messiah's in that it had no carriages, no horses, no ordained ministers, nor a trained choir singing the remains into their final resting place. The veld funeral party, like the funeral party of the Son of Man, was in mortal fear of the representatives of the law; it, like that party, had not the light of the sun, nor the light of a candle, which charitable friends in our day ...
— Native Life in South Africa, Before and Since • Solomon Tshekisho Plaatje
... Haydn by name, had only lately come into the choir-master's family. He was a child of six years old, but had already shown such wonderful musical genius, that his parents had decided to place him with his uncle, where he would have great opportunities for ...
— Chatterbox, 1906 • Various
... said Graham. "Don't import Cologne in order to crush us here down in our little English villages. You never saw the choir of Cologne bright ...
— Orley Farm • Anthony Trollope
... a gold chasuble in the vestry, in readiness for the benediction. The peasant cried: "The Spaniards are in the orchard!" Horrified, the cure ran to the door of the church, and the choir-boys ...
— Stories by Foreign Authors: Polish • Various
... himself. The cathedral which he has left has since his day been extended both to east and westward; and what he built he joined on to the more ancient square and perpendicular tower. The cathedral consists of an aisled, eight-bayed nave (130 by 58 feet, and 50 feet high), an aisleless choir (80 by 30 feet), with a chapter-house, sacristy, or lady chapel, to the north. The nave is almost entirely pure first-pointed. In the clerestory the windows are of two lights, with a foiled circle ...
— Chronicles of Strathearn • Various
... scent that wafted from the white hawthorn bushes, and watching the water glide along till it seemed gradually to wash away the fading colours of the sunset that glorified it. And as he dwelt on the vision he felt harmonies and phrases stirring and singing in his brain, like a choir of awakened birds. Quickly he seized paper and wrote down the theme that flowed out at the point of his pen—a reverie full of the haunting magic of quiet waters and woodland sunsets and the gracious innocence of maidenhood. When it was done he ...
— Merely Mary Ann • Israel Zangwill
... dance a measure, Nodding as the notes inspire— And their branches, as with pleasure, Add their music to the choir. ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volume V. - The Songs of Scotland of the Past Half Century • Various
... catholic. He was a bit of a naturalist, learned in the lore of woods and fields, and he liked to talk about books, and he liked to talk about his home. Simple John would sooner hear Caesar talk than listen to the heavenly choir. So it came to pass that once a week at least the boys would stroll down the avenue at Orley Farm (where Anthony Trollope's sad boyhood was passed), or take the Northwick Walk, which winds through meadows to the Bridge, or visit John Lyon's farm at Preston, or, getting signed for Bill, attempt ...
— The Hill - A Romance of Friendship • Horace Annesley Vachell
... will be a choir as good as those people who sang at the town hall, last Thanksgiving, and flowers, lots of them, roses in winter, even," he went on eagerly. "And you can hear a pin drop while I am preaching, only once in a while somebody will sob a little in the pauses, and then put in a roll of hundred-dollar ...
— The Brentons • Anna Chapin Ray
... composer St. Louis has developed. He was born in 1860, his father being William Robyn, who organized the first symphonic orchestra west of Pittsburg. Robyn was a youthful prodigy as a pianist; and, at the age of ten, he succeeded his father as organist at St. John's Church, then equipped with the best choir in the city. It was necessary for the pedals of the organ to be raised to his feet. At the age of sixteen he became solo pianist with Emma Abbott's company. As a composer Robyn has written some three hundred compositions, some of ...
— Contemporary American Composers • Rupert Hughes
... daughter, Nita, who acted as Madame's maid. These sounds died away, and I thought how silent everything had become. Even the birds were still, and presently, my eye being attracted to a black speck in the sky above, I learned why the feathered choir was mute. A ...
— Bat Wing • Sax Rohmer
... of the white Sea Spirit, high in rule, Storm-lord Palaemon, Oh, be merciful: Or sit ye there the warrior twins of Zeus, Or something loved of Him, from whose great thews Was-born the Nereids' fifty-fluted choir." Another, flushed with folly and the fire Of lawless daring, laughed aloud and swore 'Twas shipwrecked sailors skulking on the shore, Our rule and custom here being known, to slay All strangers. And most ...
— The Iphigenia in Tauris • Euripides
... The celestial choir continued during one revolution of the planet. The vast throng sang in the air as the planet revolved on its axis. As each section of the globe came beneath the long extended line of melodious angels, the marvelous change took place for that section. The sleeping saints came ...
— Life in a Thousand Worlds • William Shuler Harris
... hundred thousand francs, you have packed them off in a hurry to Paris. Poor dear man! he is no better than a baby! We have just been told of a little treasure at Bourges,—what did they call it? a Poussin,—which was in the choir of the cathedral before the Revolution and is now worth, all by itself, thirty ...
— The Two Brothers • Honore de Balzac
... kind to her, and John tried to give a little excitement to her life by coaxing her to share with him the things he considered quite stirring. But visits to her aunt at St. Merryn, and Sunday trips to hear some new preacher, and choir practisings with Tris dangling after them wherever they went, were not interesting to the wayward girl. She only endured them, as she endured her daily duties by keeping steadily in view the hope Roland had set before her. However, as she sang nearly constantly, Joan's ...
— A Singer from the Sea • Amelia Edith Huddleston Barr
... service was drawing to a close a boy entered the church in great excitement, ran to the sacristy, dressed himself quickly in the choir robes, and cleaving, thanks to that uniform, the crowd that filled the temple, approached Bazin, who, clad in his blue robe, was standing gravely in his place at ...
— Twenty Years After • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... its restoration to the original condition. The roof frame is burned to the beginning of the curve of the dome. The inner ceiling has prevented the fire from spreading to the inner part of the church, containing rich art treasures. Above the choir, however, the inner ceiling gave way, thereby partially damaging the upper part of the rococo altar of stone which was ...
— New York Times Current History: The European War from the Beginning to March 1915, Vol 1, No. 2 - Who Began the War, and Why? • Various
... was made a member of the boys' choir, it being found that I possessed a clear, strong soprano voice. I enjoyed the singing very much. About a year later I began the study of the pipe organ and the theory of music; and before I finished the grammar school, I had written out several simple preludes ...
— The Autobiography of an Ex-Colored Man • James Weldon Johnson
... in the Tabernacle of the First Congregational Church, presides at the public service. The great assembly room is packed with interested listeners who soon become delighted. After opening devotions, conducted by the pastor, Rev. Mr. Voorhees, and his choir, the young brethren proceed with a prayer in the Chinese, then with the Lord's Prayer in concert, both in English and in Chinese. Then come songs in solo and in concert, from the Moody and Sankey book, and recitations of Scripture passages. ...
— The American Missionary — Vol. 44, No. 4, April, 1890 • Various
... the Doctor taking the other. I supposed him to be one of the elders, going to give out the hymns, or to assist in the devotional exercises. At this moment the organ—a fine-toned instrument—struck up, and the choir sang some piece—known, I presume, only to themselves, for no others joined in it. This prelude I have since found is universal in America. In all places of worship provided with an organ, a "voluntary" on that instrument ...
— American Scenes, and Christian Slavery - A Recent Tour of Four Thousand Miles in the United States • Ebenezer Davies
... came the choir. She watched their faces eagerly. Would she recognise Billy Burr? And which was Dickie Lowe? Ah! those two must be the golden-haired twins about whom Mr. Owen had told her and Charlie three years ago, now no longer the foremost in the little ...
— The Girls of St. Olave's • Mabel Mackintosh
... joy to Gordon. He rushed off after tea to wire the news home; then he sat in the gallery and listened to the concert. He had expected to enjoy it rather; but the seats were uncomfortable, the music too classical, and he soon stopped paying any attention to the choir, and began a long argument with Collins as to the composition of the Two ...
— The Loom of Youth • Alec Waugh
... a little comfort finally, for when the Deacon died, by some inadvartance the choir sang, 'Praise God from whom all blessin's flow,' an' I wa'n't the only one who felt ...
— Uncle Terry - A Story of the Maine Coast • Charles Clark Munn
... Councillors, Captains, other officers, and all the gentlemen, and with a guard of fifty halberdiers, in his Lordship's livery, fair red cloaks, on each side and behind him. The Lord Governour sat in the choir in a green velvet chair, with a velvet cushion before him on which he knelt, and the Council, Captains and officers sat on each side of him, each in their place; and when the Lord Governour returned home he was waited on in the same manner to ...
— Religious Life of Virginia in the Seventeenth Century - The Faith of Our Fathers • George MacLaren Brydon
... contained hymns; the Book of Collects, prayers, collects and chapters; the Martyrology contained the names with brief lives of the martyrs; the Rubrics, the rules to be followed in the recitation of the Office. To-day, we have traces of this ancient custom in our different choir books, the Psalter, the Gradual, the Antiphonarium. There were not standard editions of these old books, and great diversities of use and text were ...
— The Divine Office • Rev. E. J. Quigley
... Mahometans, and Pagans. Sydney is divided into four parishes: St. Philip, St. James, St. Andrew, and St. Lawrence; in the two first of which churches have long existed, and in St. James's church the cathedral service is daily used, with weekly communion; and there is a choir, organ, &c.[138] In the two last named parishes no churches have existed until very recently, but through the indefatigable exertions of Bishop Broughton, which have been not unworthily seconded by the Rev. W. Horatio Walsh, and the Rev. W. West Simpson, congregations ...
— Australia, its history and present condition • William Pridden
... leam Domhnullach neo-chosdail O nach coltach e ri cach. 'N uair bhios iadsan ag iarraidh fortain Bidh esan 'n a phrop aig fear cais Ma bha do mhathair 'n a mnaoi choir Cha do ghleidh i 'n leabaidh phosda glan, Cha 'n 'eil cuid agad do Chloinn Domhnuill, 'S Rothach no Rosach am fear. 'N uair a bhuail thu aig an uinneig Cha b' ann a bhuinnigeadh cliu, Dh' iarraidh na druaip bha 's a' bhotul, Mallachd ...
— The Celtic Magazine, Vol. 1, No. 1, November 1875 • Various
... nuns performed them under the lead of Brother Friedsam himself. In the gallery of Zion house, but concealed from the view of the brethren, sat the sisterhood, like a company of saints in spotless robes. Below, the brethren, likewise in white, answered to the choir above in antiphonal singing of the loveliest and most faultless sort. Strangers journeyed from afar over rough country roads to hear this wonderful chorus, and were moved in the depths of their souls ...
— Duffels • Edward Eggleston
... from which many went away rejoicing in God; and not a few date new progress in the Christian life from it, by means of the new and striking illustration which they there had of the Saviour's power and love. The Choir struck the key note of heaven in their opening strains, by chanting, "Worthy is the Lamb that was slain, to receive power, and riches, and wisdom, and strength, and honor, and glory, and blessing." They gave us, too, her favorite song, by which she ...
— Catharine • Nehemiah Adams
... matters to extremities, and so alienate the parish constable, and a large part of his flock, though he had not tact or energy enough to bring them round to his own views. So a compromise was come to; and the curate's choir were allowed to chant the Psalms and Canticles, which had always been read before, while the gallery remained triumphant ...
— Tom Brown at Oxford • Thomas Hughes
... I look back upon it, I perceive transcendent sunsets, and a mighty sweep of golden grain beneath a sea of crimson clouds. The light and song and motion of the prairie return to me. I hear again the shrill, myriad-voiced choir of leaping insects whose wings flash fire amid the glorified stubble. The wind wanders by, lifting my torn hat-rim. The locusts rise in clouds before my weary feet. The prairie hen soars out of the unreaped barley and drops into the sheltering deeps of ...
— A Son of the Middle Border • Hamlin Garland
... glad to get hold of any kind of half-decent chap that is willing to help in any way. We use him as usher, manager, choir-master, sexton. In short, we put him any place ...
— The Prospector - A Tale of the Crow's Nest Pass • Ralph Connor
... Busscombe was a large manufacturing town, before the failure of the coal supply and other causes drove away its trade. Now it was much what it had been in the time of the Normans, a little agricultural village with a population of 300 souls. Out of this population, including the choir boys, exactly thirty-nine had elected to attend church on this particular Sunday; and of these, three were fast asleep and four ...
— The Wizard • H. Rider Haggard
... and strong, set in a veritable English green, with little houses round about, reminding one of Salisbury. I entered the Cathedral; and found the nave to be composed in what is called in England the "decorated" style, and the choir to give hints of "perpendicular." And then I remembered, with a start, that the ancestors of all that is most beautiful in England had migrated from Normandy, and that here I was visiting them in their antecedent home. "Saxon and Norman and Dane are we;" and ...
— The Unpopular Review, Volume II Number 3 • Various
... Miss Hart cherished the belief that her voice was necessary to sustain the singing at any church meeting. She had, in her youth, possessed a fine contralto voice. She possessed only the remnant of one now, but she still sang in the choir, because nobody had the strength of mind to request her to resign. Sunday after Sunday she stood in her place and raised her voice, which was horribly hoarse and hollow, in the sacred tunes, and people shivered ...
— The Shoulders of Atlas - A Novel • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... told by M. Blaze de Bury of an ancient custom which we do not find stated elsewhere. A platform was erected, he tells us, outside the choir of the cathedral to which the King was led the evening before the coronation, surrounded by his peers, who showed him to the assembled people with a traditional proclamation: "Here is your King whom we, peers of France, crown as King and sovereign lord. And if there is a soul here which has any ...
— Jeanne d'Arc - Her Life And Death • Mrs.(Margaret) Oliphant
... from the ferment of utter fatigue and anxiety. When Paul came in, looking very grave, she told him with a wavering laugh, 'If I tried as hard for ten minutes to go to Heaven as I've tried all day to have this dinner right, I'd certainly have a front seat in the angel choir. If anybody here to-night is not satisfied, it'll be because he's harder to ...
— Quit Your Worrying! • George Wharton James
... little light. Subdued voices sounded from the apartment, monotonous recitals, which the loud refrain, "Heiti-na, Heiti-na," at times interrupted. The poor deaf widow sat with tearful eyes in a corner; her lips moved, but no sound came from them; only, when the leader of the choir broke out with appropriate gesticulations, she chimed in loudly. When at such a signal the other women present began to tear their hair, she did the same, and shouted at the top of her voice like ...
— The Delight Makers • Adolf Bandelier
... songs of Spring? Ay, where are they? Think not of them, thou hast thy music too,— While barred clouds bloom the soft-dying day,— And touch the stubble-plains with rosy hue; Then in a wailful choir the small gnats mourn Among the river sallows, borne aloft Or sinking as the light wind lives or dies; And full-grown lambs loud bleat from hilly bourn; Hedge-crickets sing; and now with treble soft The red-breast ...
— The Hundred Best English Poems • Various
... Of choice, or does our good Lysimachus, Bringing unwonted loads of carking care, O'ercloud thy brow? I prithee, father, fret not; There is no cloud of care I yet have known— And I am now a man, and have my cares— Which the fresh breath of morn, the hungry chase, The echoing horn, the jocund choir of tongues, Or joy of some bold enterprise of war, When the swift squadrons smite the echoing plains, Scattering the stubborn spearmen, may not break, As does the sun the mists. Nay, look not grave; My youth is strong enough for any burden ...
— Gycia - A Tragedy in Five Acts • Lewis Morris
... all fire Of wondering zeal, and storm of bright desire. Round the broad dome the immortal throngs are beaming, With elemental powers the vault is teeming; We gaze, and gazing join the fervid choir, In spirit launched on ...
— Correggio - A Collection Of Fifteen Pictures And A Portrait Of The - Painter With Introduction And Interpretation • Estelle M. Hurll
... move when the great doors open, and the Knights of the Grail come marching in, singing of the mystic vessel and of its magic properties. This strain is taken up not only by the youths who follow them, but also by a boy choir in the dome which is intended to represent the angels. When the knights have all taken their places, the doors open again to admit the bearers of the sacred vessel, which is kept in a shrine. They are followed by Amfortas, in his litter, and when he has been carefully ...
— Stories of the Wagner Opera • H. A. Guerber
... himself, with no one in the dusty organ loft but Tom; so while he played, Tom helped him with the stops; and finally, the service being just over, Tom took the organ himself. It was then turning dark, and the yellow light that streamed in through the ancient windows in the choir was mingled with a murky red. As the grand tones resounded through the church, they seemed, to Tom, to find an echo in the depth of every ancient tomb, no less than in the deep mystery of his own heart. Great thoughts and hopes came crowding on his mind as the rich music rolled upon ...
— Life And Adventures Of Martin Chuzzlewit • Charles Dickens
... troubles, but still in an erect clear-standing manner, has Brother Samson reached his forty-seventh year; and his ruddy beard is getting slightly grizzled. He is endeavouring, in these days, to have various broken things thatched in; nay perhaps to have the Choir itself completed, for he can bear nothing ruinous. He has gathered 'heaps of lime and sand;' has masons, slaters working, he and Warinus monachus noster, who are joint keepers of the Shrine; paying out ...
— Past and Present - Thomas Carlyle's Collected Works, Vol. XIII. • Thomas Carlyle
... floor. "We shall wear one garment, loose enough to allow entire freedom of movement. We shall bathe in Nature's pools and come out cleansed. On the Sabbath we shall attend divine service under the Gothic arches of the trees, read sermons in stones, and instead of that whining tenor in the choir we shall listen to the birds ...
— Tish, The Chronicle of Her Escapades and Excursions • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... half past eight, left our horses at a public house, and went on board the Curacoa, in the wardroom skiff; were entertained in the wardroom; thence on deck to the service, which was a great treat; three fiddles and a harmonium and excellent choir, and the great ship's company joining: on shore in Haggard's big boat to lunch with the party. Thence all together to Vailima, where we read aloud a Ouida Romance we have been secretly writing; in which Haggard ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 25 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... to a rood-screen which protected it on one side, and also to the walls which inclosed it to right and left. The door of the screen was open and Roland entered the choir without difficulty. He came face to face with the monument of Philippe le Beau. At the head of the tomb was a large square flagstone. It covered the steps which led ...
— The Companions of Jehu • Alexandre Dumas
... thankless world regards The gifted choir Of minstrels, singers, poets, bards, Who sweep ...
— The Scarlet Gown - being verses by a St. Andrews Man • R. F. Murray
... home the exception. It is not usually, however, the social affairs of the school alone which cause the girl to develop the habit of too many evenings away from home. It is the school party plus the church social, plus the moving pictures, plus the girls' club, plus the theater, plus choir practice, plus the informal evening at her chum's, plus a dozen other dissipations, that in the course of a few years change a quiet, home-loving little schoolgirl into a gadding, ...
— Vocational Guidance for Girls • Marguerite Stockman Dickson
... and so cordial an "Amen," Followed from either choir, as plainly spoke Desire of their dead bodies; yet perchance Not for themselves, but for their kindred dear, Mothers and sires, and those whom best they lov'd, Ere they were made ...
— The Divine Comedy, Complete - The Vision of Paradise, Purgatory and Hell • Dante Alighieri
... Yankee. Standing erect in the almost vacant space, he uttered the responses in a tone that was in startling contrast to the low mumble of the clergyman's voice, and that rose above the melodious amens of the choir. He took it all in most serious earnest. When the service was over, he said to his companion, after lamenting the hasty and careless manner in which the service had been performed, that he esteemed it an honor to have worshipped God in Westminster Abbey. As he strolled ...
— Famous Americans of Recent Times • James Parton |
